Ipag Business School Year 2022/2023

HRM English Track

Application Case : Reinventing the wheel at APEX DOOR COMPANY

Jim Delany, President of Apex Door has a problem. No matter how often he tells his
employees how to do their jobs, they invariably decide “to do it their way” as he puts it,
and arguments occured between Jim, the employees and the employees’ supervisor. One
exemple, is the door design department, where the designers are expected to work with
the architects to design doors that meet the specifications. While it is not “rocket science”
as Jim puts it, the designers invariably make mistakes, such as designing in too much steel,
a problem that can cost Apex ten thousands of wasted dollars once you consider the
number of doors in a 30 storey office tower.

The order processing department is another example. Jim has a very specific and detailed
way. He wants an order written up, but most of the orders clerks don’t understand how
actually to use the multipage order form. They simply improvise when it comes to a
detailed question such as whether to classify the customer as “industrial” or
“commercial”.

The current training process is as follows: none of the jobs has a training manual per se.
Although several jobs have somehow out-dated job descriptions. The training of new
people is all on-the-job. Usually a person leaving the company trains the new person
during one or two weeks overlap period. But if there is no overlap, the new person is
trained as well as possible by other employees who have filled occasionally on-the-job in
the past. The training is basically the same throughout the company for machinists,
secretaries, assemblers and accounting clerks.

QUESTIONS:

1. What do you think of Apex training process ? Could it help explain why the
employees do things their way and if so how?
2. What do you think are some of the main drawbacks of relying on informal on-the-
job training for bringing new employees into their job?
3. What role do job descriptions play in training?
4. Explain in details what you would do to improve the training process at Apex.
Provide specific suggestions.